BG People, Dear Readers...

I would like to start by pointing out that my title is inspired by a great film called "Wizard People, Dear Readers" that spoofs Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Rather, it uses the original film's imagery with crazy new audio that retells the story. My favorite part: Hagrid is always referred to Hagar the Horrible.

If this sounds exciting to you, then invite Nathan and I over for movie night and we'll bring it to your house. Then we'll eat American popcorn and laugh for a few hours. It'll be fun--I promise.

Now, dear readers, what did I do for you today? If you guessed "climbed up a mountain with Morgan to take really fun pictures for us" then you are CORRECT!

So without further ado....on to the pictures!
Our journey begins with me apologizing for Mr. Sick for abandoning him and leaving him all alone. He understood and, in all reality, all he's doing these days is sleeping.
Very quickly in our journey we stumble upon a horse and buggy. It isn't hard to stumble upon them--they are everywhere and operate like taxis. I'd like to ride on one, but I don't think you are supposed to unless you are a Gypsy. Oh well.
Then we find a Coke machine where Coca-Cola is written in Cyrillic (bottom corner). How exciting!
Interestingly enough, it was located on the porch of the Arabica Coffee store. Oh, and that is Morgan taking a picture.
So the whole time we're walking, we are next to this giant concrete wall that we can't see over. After about 10 minutes of walking uphill and seeing nothing but a wall, we consider giving up on our adventure. Thank goodness we didn't though because about 15 minutes later we get this view:
Awesome. Now, you might think, as we did, that this is as good as it gets. Well, we made a left turn here which spat us out into a residential area. However, once we made a left, the street get going up (even steeper than before). So, of course, we follow it and at the top of that mountain we see:

Wow. Even cooler. What was even better was that this vantage point let us be voyeurs and look into people's yards. Notice the house in the lower right corner where the roof is covered in blankets to cover the holes in it? At that house, we watched a mother teaching her daughter how to belly dance.

Needless to say, after all this we were a bit thirsty. What better to refresh yourself with than a slightly-cooler-than-room-temperature Mirinda?
After that refreshment, we stopped by the market (for lettuce and clementines),
the main shopping street (for candy),
and the Super (C-Y-Pi-E-Rho) Market for bread.

Also of note on our journey: this East German car which is made of CARDBOARD, can be carried by an average adult and was, apparently, all the rage back in the day.
Just think about that at some point today--a cardboard car that you can carry if you have to. Whoa.

Ot SASHTS

Yes, my friends, that is how you say "from the United States." As in, Az se ot SASHTS, or I am from the United States.

Today, I had a very significant victory. Not only did I work on my alphabet more, I also sounded out many a word. It was like a whole new world opened up to me. For instance, the yogurt I eat is called Dannon Balance. Who knew?

However, in even bigger news, today I used Bulgarian to get medicine for my sick husband! Without a phrase book!

Alright...not really that big of deal. I simply told the nice pharmacy lady, Az govorya Engleeski, and we took it from there.

My husband, I said, has grip (flu) and I showed her my cut. I returned triumphantly with some Bulgarian TheraFluish stuff and a bottle of peroxide.

AND...I realized that I can now order cafe (with milk and sugar), three types of tea, shopska salads and tomato (domat) all in Bulgarian.

I feel set.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, Nathan's fever broke this afternoon, but I think he still has another 3-4 days ahead of sickness.

Cabin fever is real...

So Nathan is still sick today. Actually, he's sicker than yesterday. We are pretty sure he has the flu..but...the other girl from Asheville who is here brought Oscillo so he started taking that today and should be fine in a few days. I love homeopathic medicine. I was sort of surprised they didn't sell it here.

Also, since our classes are pass/fail he skipped school today to sleep and drink warm fluids.

He'll be fine. This is great for 3 reasons:
1. I don't want him to be sick.
2. I had to go to school by myself today and while I feel perfectly safe, I also felt a bit lonely.
3. He has to get better because hospitals here are terrifying.

So not to alarm anyone back home, but student health is sort of...um...not with it (like most student health centers). And at the hospital here, you don't get a new syringe every time they take blood, etc. They simply label your syringe with your name and re-use it.

I'm seriously one of the least germophobic people I know, but GROSS!

Oh, for those of you who might be wondering, my cut is healing up nicely. It is probably going to scar because there is no Neosporin (!) but soap and water and gauze are doing the trick and it isn't infected.

So remember, if you come to see us in Bulgaria, pack:
1. Allergy medication (no clean air, even inside--everyone smokes)
2. Neosporin
3. Stomach that can handle greasy food

Anyway, the point is I have cabin fever right now because I don't want to go out by myself (and there aren't really hang out places besides discos here) and so I'm stuck inside, other than school, until Nathan gets better.

Right now he's downstairs watching Star Trek...so take heed concerned people--he's going to be fine!

Did I mention that I went to the Orthodox Church this weekend while Nathan was in the beginning throes of sickness? It's really beautiful, but I forgot to take pictures. I promise when we go back we'll photograph it.

Rather uneventful day, but I figured I'd show you some pictures from the walk that made us sick. Behold:
These mountains are bigger than my other mountains...look at the snow!
This is our delicious squash and honey pastry. Yum! One of the other American girls was a bit surprised that we would eat street vendor food. You know what I say? Well...we all know that I eat food of questionable nature. Oh well. It's good for you. Remember that....
Our school! It was built to be the Communist headquarters for Bulgaria...or our region in Bulgaria...Anyway, it is funny that now it is an American University.
And...I'm sure you noticed the new header of us in front of the school. Crafty!

Bulgarian cat! So the cats will not talk to me here...I thought I spoke International Cat Language, but here they all run away from me! It's quite sad...

One final word this evening (8:00 pm here) on what to pack if you come to Bulgaria. An arrogant sense of confidence in your sprinting abilities is necessary if you ever want to cross the street. You see, here in Bulgaria, pedestrians never have the right of way and taxis will run into you if you do not move quickly enough. Also, there is no speed limit, so you must sprint at all times because taxi drivers will, and do, speed up in order to hit you. I've almost been hit 3-4 times now. They will get as close as a meter before blowing the horn. Be forewarned. We've gotten really good at jumping out in front of cars and staying alive...you've got to be good--the hospital is scary!

The good news is, European walking+sprinting+being hungry a lot+not eating a lot of anything because it is unbelievably greasy and makes you feel dirty from the inside out=Nathan and Rachel Ann are both smaller people than they were two weeks ago. This is a good thing. Let's hope we keep it up.

Ciao, ciao!

I forgot to mention...

So I forgot to mention that I had my first food that was really, very definitely gross (if we forget Nathan's cheese rolled in egg and bread crumbs and then fried debacle that he made me try).

Wonder of wonders, this disgusting food was none other than POPCORN! We've been working our way through the Harry Potter movies lately and we decided that a movie deserves popcorn so we bought some. Your choice: butter or BBQ. We chose butter.

Ugh. You know how in the US butter popcorn is salty and oily and the oil tastes like butter? No so here, my friends. They make it with salted butter and it tastes just like the real thing. Two handfuls of popcorn later, I felt like I had just eaten a stick of butter. Gross.

We hear BBQ is alright, but not really anything spicy or flavorful. Perhaps that is a better bet next time...

The BGs got us...

Oh and they got us good. Have I mentioned before how polluted it is here? Filthy polluted--if I haven't mentioned it. Have I mentioned how hazy it has been here? Insanely hazy. That's why, you may recall, I can jog here and feel fine.

Well....yesterday we didn't something that we thought was very smart, but was actually very stupid.

The sun came out finally! We were so excited that we took a 3-hour walk and explored parts of the city we'd never been to before. However, Nathan is paying for it dearly. He is lying next to me about to cough up a lung. My lungs are a little irritated too, but I sleep more than he does and I eat more fruits than he does and I think my body just handles things better.

So he is a super-Sicko today, unable to do much and I can't find any slippery elm bark or licorice root tea. We might have to resort to something gross like Theraflu or some other medicine-y thing.

Oh, and yesterday after going to the coldest museum in the world (more about that next time I visit) I sliced open my finger with our one and only Swiss Army knife while trying to make a sandwich. I'm fine. It is long, but not deep so some gauze and a Band-Aid sufficed.

Still, the BGs took us out at the knees yesterday...

Pictures!!!!!!

Today we had no classes....so while I was busy sleeping in to an unnatural hour (I blame the BGs) Nathan took the dear laptop and convinced them to (finally!) give us internet in our room!

So now I can show you pictures and we can Skype if you miss the sounds of our voices! Just remember, we are 7 hours ahead of you East Coastians. As in, it is 9 pm here, but only 2 pm where you are.

So here are a few pictures from our first week! Get ready!

Welcome to Blagoevgrad! And for those of you who were wondering, it has about 2.5 syllables. I'll say it for you sometime. It is one of the few Bulgarian words I pronounce quite well.
This is the view from outside our window! There is a Gypsy camp across the street and every day they walk their goats and horses and let them graze in our yard. Here is a man and his goat:
And here is a horse. The state of the Gypsies is really sad. They are really, really discriminated against and what is so astonishing is that visiting students (non-Bulgarian) seem to pick up these prejudices really quickly. Gypsy children occasionally beg outside of our school and elderly Gypsies wander around the city square.
This is our typical dinner (with a salad--pictured farther down). Yummy vegetable pizza. It is really flatbread with vegetables because unless you get Pizza Margherita there is hardly any cheese to speak of. Anyway, it is delicious, but funny-looking (in my opinion).
Here is how you let the town know someone has died in Bulgaria. Instead of an obituary page in the newspaper, family members post flyers around town and for the first month after someone has died they hang a black bow (huge--like a hairbow) on their front door. They hang up a fresh flyer every 3-6 months for a decade or more. No joke--some of the fliers in town are for people who died when the Communists were still in power. And, just so know, I understand the cultural sensitivity issues of taking pictures like this. Nathan blocked me and no one was on the street so no one saw. I'm really not trying to capitalize on someone else's ritual, but I thought it was really interesting.
Ah! The view of our lovely city! See the river? We live on that. You can see it from all of the common areas. One day I will post pictures of our 1 km walk to school.
This, my friends, is Technopolis! It is a lovely store that sold me a hairdryer. It was great fun acting that out for the sales clerk. My hair dryer is red and works quite well for only 19 Leva. Anyway, this is a great example of the Cyrillic alphabet in use. Now that you know the word is Technopolis, you can sound out the Cyrillic letters!
So this is a 2 foot long chicken kabob that arrived at the table ON FIRE!!!!! The fire didn't show up in the picture, but just believe me. This is from the alley restaurant that is super authentic (as in, no one speaks English). We went with friends, one of whom is Costodin who is a Bulgarian who grew up in the US. He is an exchange student too from Penn and he speaks perfect English and Bulgarian. Oh, and he ordered this giant kabob.
These are the shopska salads that I have fallen in love with. They are cubed cucumber, tomato and onion topped with feta. Unbelievably delicious. So good.
And this is a gaggle of American students at a Bulgarian restaurant. From Nathan curving around to me you have: Nathan, Costadin, Kristy, Tanya, Morgan, Kim, Rachel Ann.

It snowed!

So last night it snowed. We were very excited to wake up and see that wonderful delight. Unfortunately it all melted very quickly and I have no pictures of it to show you.

Today was consumed with lots and lots of Bulgarian history. Thankfully, after 8 hours of reading, I'm finally getting a handle on the general framework of the history.

Found out today about ANOTHER field trip I get to take in March to see Communist propoganda. I don't know if it is because we are at an American school or just because Communism was such a huge force in people's lives, but it literally comes up in EVERY SINGLE CLASS. My professors really want everyone to remember how bad it was and they all take every opportunity they can to talk smack about Putin as well.

So European education (history-wise) is taking a bit of getting used to. Nathan would interject here to say that math is the same in every country, but, let me tell you, history is not.

Although I know more technicalities of using sources and writing histories than my peers here, they all know infinitely more than me in terms of dates and knowledge of European movements. I can really only chime in with specifics as to America and England, but they know the dates of every invasion that ever happened on the continent (it seems).

Also, we read a ton here. Seriously. I've read for 8 hours over the last 2 days and it is not nearly enough. I have a BOOK due in one of my classes Monday and, even just skimming, I haven't made it more than 5 chapters yet.

Today in Bulgarian class we learned how to order tea and coffee and what we would like in it. I love learning practical things! I can now ask for fruit, herbal or black tea--with cream, sugar or lemon.

The language so far is very logical and very much like Latin or French, but we haven't started using Cyrillic yet. I'm sure that will make it harder.

How about a side note on Bulgarian pizza? I wish I could bring you all some. It is so delicious. The crust is thin, but not crispy--like pita--and they put all sort of toppings on it. If you order a vegetarian pizza it will come with carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, corn, peas, roasted red peppers and tomatoes. Delicious.

Also, although I'm not big into soft drinks, I've had to fill the void of iced tea in my life with Coke Light. Delicious. So much better than Diet Coke.

On the tea front, another girl from North Carolina tried the mystery flavor of Nestea and said it was delicious so I might be trying that soon.

And speaking of food, today I ate spinach and feta soup (YUM--I can't to try and figure out how to make this) and stuffed cabbage leaves (also tasty).

Some of the Bulgarian girls are going to take me shopping for yarn on Saturday. They seem to think they can find an old lady in the open air market who can tell us where to buy yarn.

Tell us how things are in the US (or France for Gene and Mohini) and we love you all!

I have totally lost my mind...

Nathan and I are exhibiting strange symptoms of sleeping in too late. We're calling it the BGs. Seriously, next time you need to catch up on some sleep fly for 17 hours to a country with no sunlight (only haze).

Nothing of great note to report today. Took a nice 20 minute jog along the river which was lovely.

We thought we'd update you with how our food situation is here. Here's a typical day:

Note: Everything mentioned in the following menus is consumed either:
a. out of our one Nalgene bottle, or
b. out of one of our two bowls with one of our two spoons, and
is cut with our Swiss Army knife.

Yes. We are permanent backpackers, but we have a fridge!

So here goes:

Breakfast: One slice of bread with peanut butter and blueberry jam (but not a lot of each--remember it's expensive).
2 clementines
Cappuccino (6 oz or so for 0.80 Leva)

Lunch:
One slice of bread with a slice of cheese
Bowl of strawberry yogurt with granola mixed in
Clementine or apple

Dinner:
Dinner out (usually at Napoli's). Shopska salad (feta, onion, cucumber, tomato)
Margherita pizza (pita bread topped with very little tomato sauce and melted cheese)
We split these two items.

If you double the food above then you get Nathan's daily intake. Seriously. Who knew how much he ate????

So that's our life. Same food every day. One hot meal a day. Sort of like backpacking and prison at the same time.

The food is great though. Everything is made here in town or grown not more than a few hundred miles away. Here in Eastern Europe they don't really use preservatives and chemicals on their food so there isn't a ton of variety (like in the US) but it tastes great!

And then, of course, I have my imported-from-America peanut butter.

I will say though that tonight we are craving burritos. We were going to make them as our country's food for international student week but we can't find the ingredients so now we are making chili, mac and cheese and grits. Yum.

Oh, and John and Sally--we are craving eating burritos with you guys! So eat some Moe's for us and think of us fondly when you chew your tofu.

Ya'll Ready For This?

Whoa. Classes are intense. INTENSE!

Here's the thing--I'm not Bulgarian. I didn't grow up in the Balkans. I've never lived under a Communist government.

In other words, I don't have the mental furniture that everyone else has. In my Bulgarian history class, the professor has to translate the guest speakers for me because they don't know English. Also, we have an oral history project where we have to interview one of our Bulgarian relatives (!) which I'm currently fresh out of.

There are only 7 people in that class--me and 6 Bulgarian guys. My professor, who took a liking to me when I told her about my thesis, calls me the "minority of minorities." How true.

In my Byzantine history class, the professor cracked culture jokes which I totally didn't get because I'm not from these parts, so to speak.

It is absolutely fascinating. Call me a geek, but I'm so jazzed to study historiography with these people. In both of these classes (my only History classes) we are studying the evolution of the historiography and interrogating sources in the light of a free society.

My Bulgarian history professor told the guys: "No matter how open-minded you think you are, things we discuss will make you uncomfortable because we will discuss the truth which is not what you learned in school."

She was inspired by Lies My Teacher Told Me which is a very interesting work about US History. The difference is, however, that while our history was incorrectly taught, it was not done so on pain of death (in most instances). The things I've already learned about Bulgarian history, however, I was afraid to even tell Nathan in a public place (although there were few to none English speakers about) because of how revolutionary these statements are.

I guess what I'm rambling about is--I don't, and probably will never, fully understand the Balkan mindset. Added to that, I am a senior-level History student who is also an American and has therefore been taught the importance and power of the truth. I bring that mental furniture that others don't have.

Nathan has been getting some of the same in his Economics classes. It is somewhat frustrating to always be asked to speak on behalf of your entire country. We're so varied!

It has also become undeniably clear that just as our media does not fully paint an accurate picture of other countries, people in other countries do not know the real, full story of the US. Nathan and I don't start sentences however with "I know that in your country that...," but they start sentences with "Well, I know that in America that..."

Ah...study abroad. Also, people seem to think that because we're from the South that we're insanely conservative. And most hurtful was when Nathan and a guy from Azerbajahn were discussing religion, the guy said, "Well I know you don't understand true brotherhood in religion because I know that in America blacks and whites are not allowed to go to church together." Nathan tried to explain how wrong that was, but I don't think it worked.

On lighter notes, I have lots of pictures to show you as soon as we get internet in our rooms. We found peanut butter in the market yesterday which IS SO EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!! European markets don't normally sell peanut butter and I paid way too much for it--but now I can fill up on non-cheese protein!

I'm sorry this was so long and rambly, but trying to catch you up on highlights from the past few days at once is hard to do.

Keep saying prayers for my graduate school applications--I'm applying to Boston University, Brandeis University and Simmons College.

Oh, and the proofs of wedding photos are now online so email me and I can send you the link!

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

I take it all back. Today is cold. Probably a lot like Asheville.

I've had two classes so far today--Introduction to Archaeology and Introduction to Bulgarian.

Archaeology sounds awesome. My professor is currently working on a dig a few kilometers away so we get to go there with him and we also get to go on lots of field trips. I'm pumped. He also said that Nathan could go on field trips too. I have the class with another American exchange student so we can brave the early morning 8 am cold together.

Intro to Bulgarian is going to be quite difficult. There are only about 10 students and more than half of the class is American. The professor forced us to speak a lot on the first day. It's great because Nathan and I will learn Bulgarian, but it's always difficult to pick up another language--especially one with a different alphabet.

Nathan is headed off to another class now and I'm doing grad school stuff until we have to go deal with more government bureaucracy. I can't wait to get this ID card so we can stop filling out forms.

Have a great MLK day in the US!

A Fo' Real Update

So. Nathan and I slept about 17 hours last night and I'm ready to let you know what's been going on here in the BG. By the way, whenever anything new or exciting happens I like to refer to it as occuring in the BG. You know, like the OC. Remember the first episode? Well this week has been a little like that.

We got in in the late afternoon on Tuesday and went to sleep. Wednesday started orientation and Wednesday night we ate at a delicious Bulgarian restaurant with our new Bulgarian friends and ordered through pictures. I had feta-stuffed red peppers. Pictures to follow when we get internet in our rooms.

On Thursday we finally got email and started the frustrating process of trying to get BG ID cards. Yes--we already have visas. Yes--we had to register with the police immediately upon arrival. And yes--we have to get one more form of ID before we can leave the country. So to get a BG ID you have to open up a bank account with 1,000 Leva. Unfortuantely, in Bulgaria you can't get a joint account even if you are married, so Nathan and I had to deposit 2,000 Leva to get our (separate) accounts.

You also have to have new passport photos taken and--OH MY GOODNESS--we both look like we killed someone right before the photo because you can smile or show your teeth in a BG ID photo.

The rivers here are dirty, but the mountains are beautiful. Everything is also REALLY cheap. Not only does our money go farther, but things are just cheaper. We bought 4 days worth of groceries (bread, clementines, milk, granola, juice) today for 6 Leva (or about $4.00).

That's awesome. All of the Bulgarians think things are really expensive though because recently food prices shot up a lot because of some economic thing that you can ask Nathan about. He understands it.

Oh! We can drink the water! That's a major plus.

I still haven't found a yarn shop or a cup of chai. I've found plenty of bags of hot tea, but oh well.

Today we attempted to eat in a restaurant by ourselves. The menu was in English (or Engleski) and Bulgarian (Bulgarski) which was great. We're taking Intro to Bulgarian starting on Monday which is great because so far we can say:
Neh Bulgarski. Engleski. Smartke molya.
No Bulgarian. English. Check, please.

We're pretty proud of our few phrases, but both can't wait to pick up more. We got really excited when we figured our the letter "phi" makes an "f" sound and we could recognize signs for "Phi"OTO and KA"Phi"E (Photo and Coffee).

Small victories make us very happy. People walking goats also make us happy.

Stay tuned for pictures in a few weeks. It takes a while for them to approve your request for internet in your room.

Until then..."Welcome to the BG..."

Look! We have internet!

I cannot write much because we have to go eat dinner, but stayed tuned for exciting stories of Eastern Europe which does in fact look like you would think. It is dark and somewhat snowy and fumey and the people rarely smile but are still happy all the same. Oh yeah, and we've now seen two people walking goats.

I know you're excited now. Stay tuned!

Not much to report...

It's been a few busy days here in Raleigh. I took the GRE and did way better than I should have considering how little I studied.

Nathan and I cleared out the car and made a massive packing list. We'll get to the actual packing tomorrow.

We made some returns today and took an hour long hike with Mama and Daddy followed by some delicious salads.

Mama is encouraging us to eat all of the leftover reception food, so Nathan is eating at every turn.

2 days until Bulgaria!

How are things going for everyone else? Let us know!

Too tired for a real post...

We're back in Raleigh!

Korrie--I have hints for when you and Koop travel to San Diego. We saw so many fun things today that we hadn't seen all week.

Alright...signing out...GRE tomorrow!

Mathapalooza--The Grand Finale

Sorry about no posts yesterday--nothing of much exciting blog import happened. Pretty much Nathan and I talked the entire day--about our futures and career possibilities and life in general. It's a really weird place to be at in life--to know that you are doing some things you are called to do (be married to each other) but not doing other things and not exactly knowing what else we are called to do in life.

Anyway, we decided to take pictures of expired elevator permits. True story--we haven't been in a San Diego elevator yet that has a current permit.

Here's the one from our hotel:
You can't see it, but it expired on December 12, 2006. Sketch.

Today was Nathan's big talk. I also had to go to the talks by Nathan's colleagues (on the same topic). And then Nathan made friends with another guy doing a knot talk so I went to **4** talks on knots today. Wow. I actually began to understand things by the end.

Anyway, here's a picture of Nathan and Sean preparing their talk:
We had a DELICIOUS lunch of pineapple wontons and pineapple sushi in-between all these talks. I know you all know how much I LOVE pineapple sushi...this entire restaurant was variations on pineapple sushi.

So...walking back from lunch we encountered a mathematician on a seugeway! Oh man! So awesome. Seugeways are hilarious.
So tonight we're packing and getting ready for a flight back to Raleigh tomorrow.

Oh, and for those of you playing along at home--WE GOT OUR VISAS!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, they are ready and being overnighted--thanks Mama!

GRE is Friday. Stay posted for how hard it was.

Mathapalooza!

So today was way too long and didn't involve a lot of math. However, it did involve me wanting to laugh at mathematicians at inappropriate times.

The day got kicked off when we had to wake up and call the Bulgarian Embassy. Guess what? Our visas haven't been approved yet. Even better, they told me to just keep calling back and they'd let us know later when we could get them. Well, we have plane tickets, but we still don't know when we get to use them. This is quite frustrating.

So...we caught a ride with other mathematicians staying at our hotel--awesome. Nathan went to another game tent and played math games. I made friends with a guy from Brooklyn who moved to San Diego a few decades ago.

Then...Nathan and I went and explored the Gaslamp District which is the historic downtown of San Diego.
We had lunch at Royal Thai and ate amazing spicy Thai basil with tofu and vegetarian spring rolls. Then we wanted a sundae from Ghiradelli, but they had a bad health grade so we went to FruBerry. Looking back on it, we should have known that no man would want to eat something that starts with the prefix "Fru." Oh well. I thought it was delicious.

They sold fat-free frozen yogurt that, oddly enough, still tasted like yogurt. You know--yogurt tanginess? They also only had three flavors--green apple, cheesecake and green tea. Nathan had cheesecake with granola and then he added his own trail mix. I had green tea with yogurt chips. I thought it was delicious--Nathan thought it was interesting.

Anyway, then we wandered back to the Convention Center. Nathan's friends, Carolyn and Debbie, had won the puzzle he tried to win yesterday, so the three of them spent a while trying to solve the puzzle again and they finally succeeded!

Then, Nathan had a ton of time to kill before going to a banquet, so Nathan and I walked around San Diego Bay. However, first a side note about banquets--super sweet Nathan wanted to make sure I had lots of fun at the math conference so a few months ago he bought banquet tickets for us so we could have some special dinners. Well, Nathan had no idea the banquets were themed so we ended up with tickets to Mathematicians for Educational Reform and tonight we're supposed to attend the Black Mathematicians banquet (but then Nathan found out he has to be at a different dinner).

Anyway, I wanted to laugh-- a lot--at the fact that we know nothing about educational reform. Oh, and everyone assumed Nathan already had a PhD--so that was fun. I also got to introduce myself to banqueteers as Mrs. Brothers. Oh! Oh! And our food was so transitional! It was tiny and served on mini-plates and one really big plate and all of the plates were square so they fit together like puzzle pieces. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it.

Oh well. Back to the harbor. Here's some Dole fruit coming at ya!
And then we made friends with a pelican. I've never been so close to a pelican. It was awesome.
So...everyone else have a great East Coast day...and hopefully (if I convince Nathan) tonight I'll be able to report on pineapple wontons!

Nathan believes!

Formal update later, but thanks to the comments and emails of wonderful people like you Nathan acknowledges that people other than me read this! Hurray!

Episode 3...

...in which our now dry brave heroes explore Little Italy and begin Day One of Mathapalooza.

Well gang, this morning I woke up in a room with windows! However, I woke up before the sun (but at least I could see that--what with the windows and all).

Nathan woke up A LOT later than I did so we didn't venture out until 12ish or so. We set out again today to find a not so sketchy part of San Diego and we found it in Little Italy!


Oh.My.Goodness. If you, dear readers, ever go to San Diego eat at Fillipi's in Little Italy. You enter through an Italian grocery store and walk to the back where there is magically a delicious restaurant that hasn't changed since the 1950s. A ginormous salad and bell pepper pizza later, we emerged totally and completely satisfied by the delicious food with enough leftovers to eat for a few days.

At the trolley stop today we met a lady who talked to us about the homelessness problem in San Diego. EVERY place she mentioned is within a block of our hotel. Oh well. It has windows. And I feel safe.

After Little Italy, where we also met a Mexican who ended every sentence in English with "homie" (not so in his Spanish sentences), we ventured to the Convention Center to check in at Mathapalooza (otherwise known as the Joint Sessions).

OK, so backstory. Nathan and I had a layover in Detroit on our way to San Diego. This really squirrelly guy got on the plane in Detroit and I (jokingly) said, "That guy is totally going to your geeky conference." Well, lo and behold, within 15 of checking in today, we met the guy at the convention. His name is Joel and he's really nice. Nathan and he chatted about their research and turns out that Joel knows the guy that Nathan references five times in his talk. Joel introduced Nathan to Dr. Kauffman and got to invite him to the talk. So...now cool is that? Oh, and I was so right that Joel was en route to Mathapalooza.

Here's a picture of Nathan and Joel chatting it up:

Nathan also played some puzzle game where if you solve it in 5 minutes you get it free. Needless to say, he didn't solve it (but almost!) and he tried to solve it for a lot longer than 5 minutes. He tried long enough that the lady said she might have to call security on my husband.

OH! So that's another very exciting thing that happened today. For the first time since we've been married, we got to introduce each other to people and husband and wife. We also got to see a slew of UNC Asheville professors and Nathan's colleagues from the summer who got to see us again...but married this time!

Nathan went to a few sessions today. We watched a math movie ("Flatland") and I studied for the GRE. I hope there will be more exciting updates on the Mathapalooza front tomorrow. Oh, and please join us in our prayers that Nathan will make tons of contacts that will get him into graduate school!

So today I started referring to you as "my loyal readers." Nathan thinks this is hilarious...so...if you are reading this, PLEASE comment so I can prove to Nathan that people read this other than me.

I'll leave you with one final picture of Nathan's name in the official conference program:

San Diego--Day 2

To all my friends that I love--never stay at Hostel Cat in San Diego. There are no windows!!!!! No joke. And the entire place is designed for drunk travelers so someone is passed out somewhere at all times. This means that you can't turn on lights. This, paired with no windows, makes for not such a fun time. Oh, and they pump mid-90s rock music throughout the ENTIRE building so you can't get a moment's rest anywhere. Awful music. Awful sleep. Awful hot (no windows). Ech.

Because I thought it was funny, here is a picture of one of the signs posted around the hostel. Every sign in the place has a reference to "keeping the dream alive." Nathan and I never figured out what that meant.

Anyway, the place was whacked and uncomfortable. So...Nathan and I left today for a new hotel. Good ole America's Best Inn is going to take us in for five days. Only problem is that we couldn't get a refund at Hostel Cat and, although we didn't know it ahead of time because of the lack of windows, today the skies were pouring rain in sunny San Diego. So...Nathan and I walked a mile and a half with all of our luggage in the pouring rain to get to the new hotel and here's how we looked afterwards:


Well, we never really dried off because we couldn't check in for a few more hours. So we dropped our luggage and headed off for Old Town San Diego. It's a state park that recreates a Californio ranchero from the mid-1800s when California was still part of Mexico.

We ate delicious food and took in some fabulous Christmas decorations.

(Check out the cute tortilla bowl to hold the beans!!!)

So after some adventures in Old Town we negotiated the San Diego public transit system which is the hardest of any city we've ever been to. C-R-A-Z-Y. Oh, and San Diego is really strange in that everything is rather low-income here. It seems that there is no middle class. What a strange city.

Anyway, we made it back to the hotel and now I'm typing this from the comfort of a bed in a room with windows!

Conference starts tomorrow--I'm sure you are all on the edge of your seats to hear what exciting adventures will occur with 5,000 mathematicians. Nathan surely is--all day long he had been practicing the delivery of his math jokes.

Married!!!!!!!

Alright. Here's an update on the past few days. We forgot to take a picture on New Year's Day (we got distracted) but there are plenty of pictures from that day. Check www.leahbowmanphotography.com for those pictures.

Anyway, we remembered to take pictures for the rest of the days.

On the 2nd, here's a picture of Nathan driving to his dad's house to clean their garage and say goodbye before they (temporarily) moved to France.














On the 3rd we took a ridiculously long flight to San Diego after opening our beautiful wedding gifts. After an exhausting flight we arrived at our over-booked hostel that moved our room arrangements and generally made me very unhappy. I was tired, cranky and cried myself to sleep. Not such a good honeymoon memory.

Anyway, here's a picture of Nathan putting stuff away in the hostel.













Today I woke up, took a shower and felt a bit better about the entire situation. We went to the San Diego Zoo and took a ton of fun pictures. Here are my three favorites--a Bornean bearded pig, a camel and a fun bird...